Keeping Northumbrian language alive

Adapting to change is helping to keep the Northumbrian language alive. But traditional dialects like ’Pitmatic’ seem doomed to disappear, along with the colliery communities in which they were established. That’s the conclusion of Northumbrian dialect expert and poet Raymond Reed. He was delivering the annual Roland Bibby Memorial Lecture at Morpeth Town Hall. So what is Northumbrian language? According to Mr Reed, it is a speech of old English or Anglo-Saxon, with ’a canny few Scandinavian words hoyed